The CIA was worried when Oliver Stone’s movie told people there were a lot of JFK assassination records being kept from them. And they took steps to control and prevent the release of some of their records. Some were not released until after well after the ARRB was gone. Some are only now being released. It’s ironic that some MLK records got mistakenly mingled in with the large JFK records releases in the 1990’s because now in a large dump of MLK records there are quite a few JFK records released, one of which I discuss below.
30 years ago I wrote about the odd numbering system CIA records had in the JFK Records Collection. These are what I call the 1993 numbers. You’ve seen them. They look like this - 1993.05.13.16:24:12:000032. That’s the CIA numbering system for what would be RIF #104-10001-10000.
Andrew Iler is building upon something I wrote in an email to the ARRB and to the JFK research community:
“5/19/1998
To: Eileen Sullivan
From: Joe Backes
Subject: FYI #2
There was a time period in the JFK Act prior to the creation of the JFK Assassination Records Collection database that determined if a record was to have a RIF. See Public Law 102-526 Section 5 (d) (3) "Assassination records which are in the possession of the National Archives on the date of enactment of this Act, [ October 26, 1992 ] and which have been publicly available in their entirety without redaction, shall be made available in the Collection without any additional review by the Review Board or another authorized office under this Act, and shall not be required to have such an identification aid unless required by the Archivist."
Now this material was just dumped into the Archives at the right time, so no RIF. However, the section states that the material was to have been "publicly available in their entirety", it was not, and "without redaction" which it is not.”
So, I thought that the CIA put their documents in at a certain time to prevent or delay them ever getting what came to be RIF numbers.
So, Andrew Iler and Mark Adamczyk have been working on finding if indeed the CIA was planning to undermine the declassification of their JFK records. Adamczyk has written an letter “Mark Adamczyk's Letter to Congresswoman Luna Regarding Declassification,” published on Jim DiEugemio’s site. It cites RIF #104-10331-10001. This is a memo dated Feb 10, 1992. It is about a survey done on CIA records from the HSCA. It refers to a request made on Jan 16th by the CIA Director Robert Gates to J. Kenneth McDonald of the CIA History Staff to do such a survey. And there is mention of an interim report on the survey dated 30 Jan 1992. So, the hunt is on for those two records.
Meanwhile, I found something that falls right into this January 1992 time frame. In among the MLK doc dump is a 100 page document that is clearly a JFK assassination record. It does not have a RIF number. I doubt if anyone at the ARRB ever saw it. It’s dated Jan 22, 1992. It starts with a “Checklist for CIA records Relating to the Assassination of President Kennedy and the House Select Assassination Committee.” It’s a form for going through their records for what was called “the sequestered collection.” There are 100 pages mostly hand written as someone, probably a whole team of folks, go through the CIA records the HSCA looked at. And they are using this form and many blank sheets of paper with handwriting further describing what they’re finding as they go through these records.
See - 06061379_checklist_for_cia_records.pdf
RIF #104-10337-10006 is an 82 page doc. And it gives us more information than 104-10331-10001. It gives a further chronology of what they’re doing with their records after Feb 10th, 1992.
Now keeep in mind the JFK Act is not signed into law until October 26th, 1992. Gerald Posner’s book “Case Closed,” isn’t published until Tuesday, Aug 31st, 1993 which I believe was the day after the first release of JFK assassination records at the original National Archives building. And all of the members of the Assassination Review Board are not appointed until April 11, 1994.
On Feb 13, 1992 CIA Director requests they form a taskforce to set declassification guidelines.
On 27 March, 1992 the write a report on that request.
A member of the taskforce is Mary McAuliffe who was the Deputy Chief of the CIA’s History Staff. She becomes a member of the ARRB’s staff serving as their Chief Analyst for CIA records.
On April 1, 1992 “Preparations for Handling the Kennedy Assassination Papers,” is written.
On 8 April, 1992 a memorandum on LHO’s 201 file, 201-289248 and the Sequestered files of the HSCA is written
13 April, 1992 a memorandum from J. Kenneth McDonald to E. Page Moffett about Center for Study of Intelligence Access to all Records relevant to HSCA.
21 April, 1992 Moffett responds
undated - a form detailing the count of pages in the Pre-Assassination Oswald 201 file delivered to NARA on 11 May, 1992.
The hunt for more info on what the CIA was doing in 1992 continues. I’ll tell you more when I find it.
Great article. Keep digging!